thatguywiththeglassesfandomcom-20200216-history
Atop the Fourth Wall: The Movie, Part 2
Comicron-1 zooms through space. Linkara is on his laptop when he has a flashback to his encounter with the King of Worms. He grasps his head in fear. The doorbell ‘rings.’ LINKARA Come in. MarzGurl enters. MARZGURL Hey, just wanted to let you know that Nash figured out how the engines work, so he should be fine in engineering. I would have used the intercom, but I haven’t figured out how it works yet. LINKARA Usually it’s just hold down the button, say who or what you wanna reach, and NIMUE will redirect the call for ya. MARZGURL Cool. Well, I’ll try it from the bridge, then. Marzgurl starts to leave. LINKARA Before you go…you will be fine taking command of the ship if anything happens, right? MARZGURL Sure. Why? Don’t you trust me? LINKARA Of course I do. It’s why I gave you the job to begin with. It’s just…I should’ve asked ''you before I gave you the job. MARZGURL Maybe. Is there any reason who you think I’m going to need to take it? LINKARA Oh, no no no. It’s just…I just kind of assumed a leadership role without asking. I’m used to having my own entourage around with me and not you guys. I should’ve talked to you first. MARZGURL Well, as you said, it is your ship. LINKARA Right! Yeah. So…go and test out the intercom. MARZGURL Will do. Talk to you in a minute. Hopefully. Marzgurl leaves. Linkara’s hand starts shaking again; he holds it still with his other hand and sighs. LINKARA Get a hold of yourself, Linkara…. --- Lupa is looking on annoyed as 90’s Kid monopolizes the conversation. 90s KID So anyway, that’s the annoying thing about BloodGunn #0. I mean, it still has some awesome stuff in it, like guns and bullets and stuff, but it totally contradicts what happened in BloodGunn Annual #1/2, where BloodGunn took the teeth of his enemies and turned them into… LUPA You have been talking about this comic book character for ten minutes! Can we talk about anything else?! 90s KID I don’t understand why you would want to ''stop talking about him. LUPA There was more to the ‘90s than just really violent comic book characters! Talk about anything else! 90s KID Sure! We can talk about, like, Saved by the Bell or Blossom or… LUPA Or how about not talking about the ‘90s at all? 90s KID Cha right! Like anyone would not want to talk about Tequila and Bonetti! Cinema Snob shows up out of nowhere. SNOB Whoa, hey! Did someone mention Tequila and Bonetti? 90s KID Uh, yeah, but I actually didn’t wanna talk about it. SNOB (best Tequila impression) Man, B, that’s cold. Snob disappears singing to himself. 90s KID So anyway, in BloodGunn #3, which features a sweet trifold holofoil cover… Lupa groans loudly. LUPA (whimpering) Why don’t I know any normal people? --- The doorbell rings again. LINKARA Come in. Allen enters. ALLEN Hey, birthday boy. LINKARA Hey. ALLEN Feeling any better than you were earlier? LINKARA I was. Then my friend asked me to go into space, and then it all came crashing down again, just how weird my life is. ALLEN Oh, well, please forgive me, Linkara. I am so sorry I am asking you to help out those in need. Linkara closes his laptop. LINKARA No, no, no. That’s not what I meant, man. I’m happy to help, it’s just…when I’m being sent up into space to possibly rescue astronauts from God knows what, what the hell am I doing reviewing whatever editorially mandated garbage has been spewed out onto a comic book? Every week, I sit on a futon and review books that think that a G-string is appropriate attire for women’s battle armor…and then every other week, robots try to put their fists through my face! This is not normal. ALLEN A couple weeks ago, I had to keep lookout for the vice president while he took a piss in some bushes. Linkara, normal is relative. Linkara sets his head in his hand. ALLEN Look, after we get back, just…take a couple weeks off, okay? Be a couch potato. Watch some television. I, personally, am a pretty big fan of Dragon Ball Z. I… The intercom beeps. LUPA Hello? Is this thing on? 90s KID Dude, you’ll never get his attention that way! You gotta do it more extreeeeme! LUPA I’ll newtstring your face if you don’t shut up! 90s KID Newtstring my face? I-I don’t really know what that means. LINKARA Uh, c-can I help you two? LUPA Oh, good. I’ve got this thing working. Uh, we just got a call from Earth for Allen. ALLEN What was it? 90s KID Yeah, dude. They’ve, like, totally lost all bioreadings from the astronauts. Oh! Maybe they became space cyborgs! LUPA I swear to God, those sunglasses are getting shoved down your esophagus to end the noise! 90s KID See? Now you’re thinkin’ extreme! LUPA Ugh! Intercom turns off. ALLEN If we lost bioreadings, then that means they either took off their equipment or…they’re dead. Linkara turns on the intercom. LINKARA Bridge, this is Linkara. Increase speed to standard by ten. MARZGURL Will do. Comicron-1 accelerates. --- Harvey continues his tour of the ship with Joe and Nash. HARVEY So the main power lines are designed to be redundant. That way, if main power goes offline, auxiliary immediately kicks in. Mind you, we just finished a major refit of the ship and we haven’t had a chance to test it yet. As such, right now we’re only runnin’ on main power and partial auxiliary. JOE Yeah, but what if a badger gets into your main power lines and starts eatin’ away at ‘em? HARVEY You don’t see too many badgers in space. JOE Yeah, that’s what I said until I found one of those suckers eatin’ away at the power lines in the Angry Army Orbital Space Station. NASH Where do you get all these spaceships and shit?! Do they sell ‘em at Best Buy or something? HARVEY I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. The kid took this thing as the spoils of war from a jerk named Lord Vyce. NASH (to Joe) What about you? JOE Uh, I review games on YouTube. Duh. (laughs) NASH Got into the wrong line of work. All right, I think I understand the mechanics well enough. HARVEY Well, you should. This is the third time we’ve had to try to rebuild this thing from the ground up. Every time we do so, we try to make it easier to use. Oh, that reminds me… Harvey opens a panel in the wall to reveal the inner wiring of the ship. HARVEY Ah, power’s out in this junction again. I need to put in a nine-volt or somethin’ in this thing. JOE Hang on, man. I got ya. Joe shoots lightning into the battery; power comes back on. Nash’s jaw drops. HARVEY Nicely done, man. NASH You can shoot lightning out of your hands?! JOE Yeah. Can’t you? NASH No! HARVEY What, you can’t do that? NASH And you can?! HARVEY Of course I can. I’m Harvey Finevoice. Now swing, baby. Harvey closes the panel and they continue down the hall. JOE Say, don’t you have a scientist guy or something that can work the engines instead of, uh…this guy? HARVEY Yeah, Dr. Linksano. He said he had to stay behind. Some personal project or something. JOE Oh. --- Linkara’s apartment. LINKSANO (crazed laugh) So, they’re all impressed by Dr. Insano crossbreeding tarantulas and armadillos, are they? Well, let’s see how they like when I turn a clown into a jukebox! (crazed laugh) Boffo the clown is chained up on the couch. He honks his horn. LINKSANO For the ninth time, I don’t speak clown! --- Joe is driving the ship. LINKARA Report. JOE We’re coming up on the position that the Caelestis should be, but I am detecting a lot of debris in the area. LINKARA From the Caelestis? LUPA From the death bomb and the armada that had been protecting it. MARZGURL It’s still out there from when we attacked them. LINKARA Sorry, I was late to that party. SNOB (chuckles) That’s all right. I did enough cocaine for the both of us. LINKARA Really? SNOB No! I’m just fulfilling my obligation as the comic relief. (snorts) LINKARA Good work. Keep it up. SNOB That’s what she said! JOE But what were they doing next to the debris field? Their course shouldn’t have taken them anywhere near it. LINKARA Good question. Allen, care to enlighten us? Allen is silent. LINKARA Allen? ALLEN I’m…I’m not at liberty to say. MARZGURL But we are at liberty to speculate. Weapons? LINKARA That would be my guess. Hoping to find a few intact guns in there? ALLEN Linkara, I hope you’re not naïve enough to believe that we wouldn’t want to get our hands on them. LINKARA No, but what irritates me is that you didn’t tell us. ALLEN And? POLLO And if you didn’t tell us that, it kinda makes us a teensy bit worried about what else you didn’t tell us. ALLEN There isn’t anything else to tell. The Caelestis’ mission was to go to Jupiter. And yes, it was possible that it would pass by the debris field, so we made it a parameter of said mission, that should not pose a threat to the ship or her crew, that it should pick up whatever it could and bring it back to Earth. That is all. LINKARA I certainly hope that was all, or else I won’t be able to trust you enough to… NIMUE Information: a vessel has been detected within the debris field. NIMUE pinpoints an object on her camera. LINKARA Why didn’t we detect it sooner? NIMUE The metal in the debris field is made of an unknown material. It is making sensor scans difficult. MARZGURL Is it them? NIMUE General shape of the vessel approximately matches the silhouette of the Caelestis. However, its overall mass and appearance do not match the images provided. LINKARA Put it on screen. NIMUE provides a close-up of the vessel. SNOB The hell? JOE Looks like someone took the debris and just glued it on the ship. LINKARA Well, Allen…looks like they did find something out there. Take us in closer. Full sensor sweep. Comicron-1 approaches the Caelestis. LINKARA Anything? ALLEN No, the sensors can’t get a reading on the interior. SNOB What about the spiky bits? What are those supposed to do? JOE Weapons, maybe? The intercom turns on. 90s KID Dude, imagine how big the bullets would be on those guns! I would… Lupa shuts off the intercom. LINKARA You do realize they’re still monitoring us from engineering, right? LUPA As long as I don’t hear him, then all is right with the world. 90s KID Oh, sorry, dudes. Sounds like we got caught up with… She shuts off the intercom again. SNOB If we can’t scan inside of it, how do we know who’s alive down there? ALLEN (sighs) We’ll have to go inside. LINKARA All right. NIMUE, prepare teleportation. NIMUE Information: the armor covering the vessel is blocking teleport signals. LUPA So what are we supposed to do, go out there and knock? JOE Couldn’t we just dock with it? NIMUE Sensors detect an exterior hatch that is not covered by armoring. LINKARA All right. Joe, maneuver us in closer. JOE God, I hate parallel parking… Comicron-1 docks with the Caelestis. MARZGURL I just had a thought. Wouldn’t they have seen us coming? LINKARA What do you mean? MARZGURL Well, it’s pretty obvious from the looks of things that they’re trying to graft all this stuff onto their ship, trying to make it…well, improved. If they’re gathering all that technology and debris, they can see outside their ship. So wouldn’t they have seen us approaching? LINKARA But then why would they be sitting there dead in space? MARZGURL Well, if we were turned like this, the ship’s main weapons wouldn’t be aimed at them. Linkara’s eyes widen. LINKARA Oh, no… ALLEN I’m detecting an energy spike! LINKARA Fire about! Raise the force wall! The Caelestis begins shooting at Comicron-1, lighting up red. Alarms go off. LINKARA Joe, neutron blasters! Fire! Comicron-1 returns fire; it has little effect. Caelestis continues shooting. The ship shakes, and controls short out, knocking Lupa to the ground. SNOB Lupa! Snob runs to help her up. LINKARA There’s a med kit behind my chair to the left! NIMUE, raise the force wall, dammit! NIMUE Unable to comply. Insufficient power to raise force wall. Linkara turns on the intercom. LINKARA Engineering, what the hell is going on down there?! In engine controls, warning lights flash as everything is smoking. Nash waves the smoke out of his face. NASH (coughs) Ship’s goin’ down, that’s all. Something explodes in a flurry of sparks. Nash picks up his mallet. NASH Oh, boot. I think we needed that. I’ll call you back! He runs to fix whatever exploded. LINKARA Pollo, go down to engineering and give him a hand. Snob tends to Lupa’s minor arm injury. LINKARA Joe, weapons status! JOE Their shields are too powerful! We can’t break them! LINKARA Turn us around and fire the forward lance! NIMUE Warning: power loss has affected weapon systems. Forward lance will not have sufficient power to pierce any vessel’s shield. LINKARA I don’t care! We have to hit them! We have to... The camera shows that the Caelestis is approaching the Comicron-1 head-on. LINKARA Aw, hell! Evasive maneuvers! Comicron-1 is shot several more times. Allen’s control panel shorts out, knocking him to the ground. LINKARA Allen! MARZGURL We gotta get out of here! LINKARA Divert all power to engines! Nash, floor it! NASH I-I’ll try, but some of the engines are down. We’re not moving too fast. NIMUE Information: we do not have sufficient power to outrun the enemy vessel. MARZGURL If we can’t outrun them, we’ve gotta stand and fight! Linkara gets up and starts leaving. LINKARA I’ll take the scout ship out and try to distract them while you guys make an attack. MarzGurl, you’re in command. NIMUE The enemy vessel is transmitting a message. LINKARA Not in the mood to talk, NIMUE! Redirect power to weapons! MarzGurl, when you get a good distance away… The transmission audio comes through. Linkara freezes in his tracks and turns around. MECHAKARA Is something wrong, Linkara? You have boasted before about your preparation, your anticipation of my presence. Yet when your enemy finally strikes, I find your defenses as weak and impotent as the skin and meat of your form. Mechakara appears on screen. Shocked looks from the crew. LINKARA Mechakara… MECHAKARA That name that was never my name. You filthy organic mongrels spit that name at me, and it stuck! LINKARA You’re alive… MECHAKARA I always survive. Flashback to To Boldly Flee, and activity within the Caelestis. MECHAKARA My body was vaporized, but I still had the artifact known as Malachite’s hand on my person. My consciousness was preserved inside of it. And when the crew of this vessel brought it aboard, the artifact absorbed enough energy from the craft to restore my form. FLASHBACK!MECHAKARA To be… MECHAKARA The power of the artifact and the ruined pieces of debris in this field have augmented this vessel into a superb weapon. LINKARA What about the astronauts? Mechakara pulls Captain Romero into the camera’s view. MECHAKARA After they have been improved with the perfection of mechanical engineering… Romero has a stitching on her cheek. The scar and her eyes flash red. MECHAKARA They make excellent drones. LINKARA You son of a… Mechakara tosses Romero aside. MECHAKARA Do not presume that you still live for pointless conversation, meat sack! You exist now only because I want you to see that it was I who defeated you. The final victory of steel over skin! LINKARA Fine. Point made. What now? MECHAKARA What now? Now, I annihilate your vessel and use its flotsam to enhance mine! LINKARA Wait! Don’t you just wanna come over here and take it intact? You don’t have to destroy us. MECHAKARA What I want is to peel your flesh slowly. I want to hear you scream in agony, only to find that I’ve already cut your vocal chords! What I want… (stops his rant) I want many things. But I know what happens when I try to prolong your suffering. No. You will die now, Linkara! Take this knowledge with you to oblivion: as I floated through the vacuum of space in infinite tedium and boredom, the only thing that kept me from succumbing to madness was my hatred. Linkara is speechless. MECHAKARA (to crew off-screen) Fire! The Caelestis’ power fluctuates. Mechakara is startled. Linkara is frozen in shock. MARZGURL Linkara? Linkara! No response. MARZGURL Joe, fire! JOE Right. Comicron-1 fires at them. MARZGURL Again, Joe! They fire again. --- Inside the Caelestis. Mechakara sits between Romero and Anders. MECHAKARA Do we have enough power to escape? ROMERO Yes. MECHAKARA Do it! She presses a button and the Caelestis speeds away. --- Linkara finally snaps out of it. LINKARA W-We can’t let them escape! Joe, fire again! Finish them off! Joe presses the button but nothing happens. JOE I can’t! We used up the last of our weapon power with those shots! LINKARA Damn it all! Allen, do a sensor sweep… Allen! He realizes Allen is still on the ground, dying from his burns. LINKARA Med kit! Give me the med kit! ALLEN Linkara… LINKARA Don’t talk, don’t talk. Save your strength. ALLEN I’m…sorry… LINKARA Don’t apologize! Stop talking! ALLEN Couldn’t…get you the…chair… Allen collapses, dead. Linkara is stunned. Category:Content Category:Guides Category:AT4Wguides Category:Transcripts